According to Section 2(k) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 defines Juvenile or Child as a person who has not completed 18th year of age. A juvenile is a young person who has not met a specific age as prescribed by the law of a country and doesn’t abide resemblance as a matured person who can be made legally liable for his criminal activities
Juvenile delinquency is the participation by a minor child, usually between the ages of 10 and 17, in illegal behavior or activities. Juvenile delinquency is also used to refer to children who exhibit a persistent behavior of mischievousness or disobedience, so as to be considered out of parental control, becoming subject to legal action by the court system. Juvenile delinquency is also known as “juvenile offending,” and each state has a separate legal system in place to deal with juveniles who break the law. To explore this concept, consider the following juvenile delinquency definition.
Juvenile Crime isn’t naturally born within the child but it’s largely present in him due to the environment that he’s brought up in, his own absurd actions or simply lack of discipline and proper education.
As Fredrick Douglass says:
It is easier to create strong children than to repair broken men. The youth is regarded to be one among the best assets of a rustic. If this population isn’t well groomed the longer term of a rustic would definitely not be very bright. We as a whole have a moral as well as an ethical responsibility to provide all children with a healthy environment to study and grow in.
Predictors of juvenile delinquencies may appear as early as preschool, and often include:
- Abnormal or slow development of basic skills, such as speech and language
- Chronic violation of the rules
- Serious aggressive behavior toward other students or teachers
Studies have found out that a various number of life circumstances constitute risk factors for a child to become a juvenile delinquent. The most common risk factors for juvenile delinquency include:
- Authoritarian Parenting – characterized by the use of harsh disciplinary methods, and refusal to justify disciplinary actions, other than by saying “because I said so.”
- Peer Association – usually resulting from leaving adolescents unsupervised, encouraging a child to engage in bad behaviors when acting with his peer group.
- Low Socioeconomic Status
- Permissive Parenting – characterized by lack of consequences for bad behavior, permissive parenting can be broken down into two subcategories: (1) neglectful parenting, which is a lack of monitoring a child’s activities, and (2) indulgent parenting, which is the enablement of bad behavior.
- Poor School Performance
- Peer Rejection
- ADHD and other mental disorders
Prevention is necessary for such children. Firstly, identification of such juveniles then providing them with the specified treatment is of utmost importance. These adolescents become habitual offenders if not timely stopped from committing offences. Moreover, the foremost effective thanks to prevent delinquency has indubitably been to help children and their families from the very beginning. The State programs attempt at early intervention, allowing numerous groups to tackle this problem in a number of ways. There are many Jurists and criminologists who suggest various provisions for the prevention of delinquency . Some of the provisions that are very useful for the welfare, development and growth of the juveniles are mentioned below.
- Individual Programs- It involves the prevention of delinquency through counselling, psychotherapy and proper education.
- Environmental Programs- involves the employment of techniques with a view to change the socio-economic context likely to promote delinquency.
CONCLUSION
The exploitation of youngsters is one among the various evils present in our society. Such abuse has an enduring and profound effect on a child’s life. The problem of kid abuse is serious because it forces the kid to react or behave in such how which is harmful to both society and him. This delinquent behavior of the adolescent is thanks to the mental trauma that he goes through within the early stages of his life. The abuse further varies in nature as physical, sexual, psychological or as a mixture of them influencing these youngsters during a negative way.
It is important to eradicate this practice from society to stay control of the matter of delinquency. It is within the best interest of the deviant child to rehabilitate him as early as possible an integrate him back to society. The State features a duty to guard the rights of those children and to return up with reformative methods to inculcate values in these children which may socially uplift and give confidence to them in order that they will further play a constructive role within the society
